Five Years On, Still Missing It

As the anniversary of what we all know this is about was approaching, I was finishing up James Green’s Death in the Haymarket, about the Haymarket “Riot”. Not to tie these two events together too closely, but there was a common element in the reaction of “better” Chicago to the agitation for workplace rights and the eight hour day in the aftermath of the Civil War, and the reaction of the larger country to the terrible events on Sept. 11, 2001.

In a word: Panic.